Messages

7071

General Mach Discussion / Re: please confirm or deny mm to inches cut question

« on: April 01, 2017, 03:18:41 PM »

Hi,
do not change Machs Native units. The native units are used on the tuning page, thus if you've set inches as native units then your
'steps per unit' setting on the tuning page is 'steps per inch'. This setting is made when Mach is setup for the first time at NOT touched
thereafter.

To cut a gcode program which is written in mm use G21 at the very start of the program. To turn the machine back to inch units code G20.

Craig

7072

General Mach Discussion / Re: Help! How best to configure Mitsubishi MR-E-20A (and 40A)-QZ

« on: March 28, 2017, 02:15:45 PM »

Hi,
that you can drive a servo is good news. That its going the wrong direction is a simple fix.

Reading the manual further I found the parameter settings you're talking about and it certainly appears that you can
program them from the drive without software installed on a PC. I have an Allen Bradley servo for a spindle and it
requires propriety software to configure it. It seemed like an extra complication but having used it it does make
configuration so much simpler than parameter entry like my VFD.

Whether you go to differential signalling is really just a matter of pulse speed. Mach3s native PP pulse rate is 25khz.
Without electronic gearing and a 10,000 count ppr encoder that means 2.5 revs per second or 150 rpm max for your
servo, pretty modest. If you up Machs PP pulse rate to its max of 100khz which happens to be the max open collector
rate for your drive that works out to 600 rpm. Is that fast enuf for your rapids? Do you require really fine resolution because
electronic gearing increases speed but at the expense of resolution. To take advantage of the speed of differential signalling
you will need an external controller, PP just wont keep up.

As for spindles if you don't require indexing then VFD driven three phase motors would work fine. If you want indexing or
may do so in the future two decent steppers and drivers would work.

Craig

7073

General Mach Discussion / Re: Help! How best to configure Mitsubishi MR-E-20A (and 40A)-QZ

« on: March 28, 2017, 05:46:06 AM »

Hi,
should have prefaced the above with a welcome to the forum!

Of course now you are in our clutches..... LOL

Craig

7074

General Mach Discussion / Re: Help! How best to configure Mitsubishi MR-E-20A (and 40A)-QZ

« on: March 28, 2017, 05:43:37 AM »

Hi,
I am inexperienced with servos but electronics is my thing and may be able to help or at least ask the right questions.

Most servo drives are programmed usually with software by the servo drive manufacturer. The program parameters are
stored in EEPROM in the drive. I presume that your drives have been configured previously. It may be necessary to get a copy
of the software that you can reconfigure to your requirement. It would certainly be instructive about the capability of your drives
and servos. Given that the servos have worked in this application then you should be OK without it but you may have to make
some shrewd guesses about how it was configured.

The inputs you require particularly are the step pos and step neg. In section 3.2 Internal connection of servo amplifier page 3-9
shows the inputs as opto isolated. Thus if current flows thru the opto LEDs the input will work. While the drive manufacturer
probably intended that 24V be used 5V will probably also work and certainly did with your previous controller.
Pins 1 & 2 need to be connected to the 5V supply of your BOB/motion controller, pin 8 to suitably configured estop/enable pin
on your BOB and pins 23 and 25 to your step pos and step neg pins of your BOB. I am going to presume your motion controller/
BOB can produce step pos/step neg signals. Note they are called different things, CW/CCW, among others by different controller/BOB
manufacturers. While Step/Direction is more common in Mach CW/CCW is well known and widely if not universally supported.
What is not clear is whether your drives are anticipating that the limit and /or home switches are to be hooked direct to the drive
or to the controller. Either would work as far as the servo is concerned but if direct connected to the drive the signals must be
transmitted back to Mach somehow usually via some sort of serial comms.

That only pins 1,2,8,23 and 25 had previously been used would lead you to believe that home and limits were connected to the
controller rather than the drive. I think the advice to try it that way is a good idea. If the servo is not actually installed in the machine
then not having either limits or a home switch will do no harm.

If you decide that the servo PID parameters, fault current, max speed/accel have to be changed  then you will have to get a copy of
the configuration software, no question. With any sort of luck you can use what is currently configured.

What controller and/or BOB are you using? I use an external controller, a Smoothstepper ESS and Homan Designs BOBs.
If you don't have either a controller or BOB then you have some decisions to make. You might also consider using Mach4
rather than Mach3. There is nothing wrong with Mach3 and it has tens of thousands of users but its development has ceased.
Mach4 is suitably complete for milling and routing and features are being added daily by Artsoft and Plugin manufacturers.
If you are going to buy a BOB or BOBs make sure you get ones with LEDs on the outputs, really are a Godsend when setting
up, especially if new to Mach.

Craig

7075

General Mach Discussion / Re: How do I change Output signal Active status from within a G code program

« on: March 27, 2017, 06:47:35 AM »

Hi tony_m,
sorry I have rather hijacked your thread. I found this in the manual

OEM LED Input 1 Active 821
OEM LED Input 2 Active 822
OEM LED Input 3 Active 823
OEM LED Input 4 Active 824

and this

OEM LED Output 4 Active 77
OEM LED Output 5 Active 78
OEM LED Output 6 Active 79

So if you want to turn on an output assign pin 14 to Output#1 on the Config/Ports and Pins/Outputs page and in a macro code:

setOEMLED(822)....please note I can't find this instruction in the manual so I may not have quite correct.

Will try to find a list for pound variables, it would be easier to use for your purpose.

Craig

7076

General Mach Discussion / Re: How do I change Output signal Active status from within a G code program

« on: March 27, 2017, 06:14:37 AM »

Hi olf20/Bob,
milling/routing is pretty complete in Mach4, just load your code and cut chips.

To customise Mach4 you do need to code with LUA. LUA itself is really easy, its all the instructions necessary to interface with
Mach4 and/or other hardware that take some getting used to. It is worth the effort, you can customise or add features to Mach4
that you just can't do with Mach3. Also while LUA is simple it has features like 'functions as first class values' which make sound
like gobble-de-gook but when you understand the implications you realise that LUA 'kicks anus bigtime'. Neither is that the only
really really powerful subtlety about LUA, light years ahead of VB.

Given that you have an ESS you can download M4 and the Warp9 M4 plugin and try it out. The Demo version runs on Simulate forever
or for about 6 minutes at a time with an active motion controller like the ESS.

Craig

7077

General Mach Discussion / Re: G28 command causes "Soft limit exceeded" message.

« on: March 27, 2017, 02:21:27 AM »

Hi Z,
I am intrigued, my G28 co-ords are, or rather were, set to 0,0,0 when I last used Mach3 and it seemed to work.
Are you saying that if one or more co-ords are zero the machine bombs?

Could it be that if your soft limit is 0,0,0 and it triggers when you call G28 when set to 0,0,0? You might try setting your
soft limits -.001,-.001,-.001 and try again. Hopefully the soft limits won't trigger given that your G28 'home' is just
marginally inside your limits.

Craig

7078

General Mach Discussion / Re: Homing the wrong direction

« on: March 26, 2017, 02:36:19 AM »

Hi,
just had another thought that might explain what you've described...could you have caused a negative scale factor?
Whether it would cause homing in the wrong direction I don't know but it could certainly screw you up!

Craig

7079

General Mach Discussion / Re: G28 command causes "Soft limit exceeded" message.

« on: March 25, 2017, 11:27:18 PM »

Hi,
sounds bizarre. The only thing I can think of is on Config/Homing-Limits page there is a panel where you can
set the co-ords for your G28 location. Could the G28 Z axis location be outside you soft limit area?

If memory serves G28 doesn't go directly to its assigned location, it goes via an intermediate location usually
selected so the tool is clear of clamps etc. If that intermediate location is not specified the current location
is assumed. Presumably the current location is within the soft limits and so shouldn't affect things but its how
Mach operates internally and may be giving you grief.

Craig

7080

General Mach Discussion / Re: How do I change Output signal Active status from within a G code program

« on: March 25, 2017, 11:14:42 PM »

Hi olf20,
its been a while since I had a look at that list, I see it has been updated and tidied up a bit since I last looked.
I have migrated to Mach4 so have no need for OEM numbers. In fact one of the main reasons I changed to Mach4
is so I could get away from the confusion of OEM numbers. Of course Mach4 has its own challenges but it is
consistent throughout.

As a matter of interest have you seen an up-to-date pound variable list for Mach3? It would be so simple for the
original poster if it were available.

Craig